Tag Archives: winter

The wintertime is coming… it bears repeating it if only because it gives us a simple intro to segue onto the product above. It’s a sled called Snolo Stealth-X, and is ostensibly made from carbon fiber. That makes it light, probably very stiff and we assume pretty freaking awesome at getting you from the top to the bottom of a snow-covered hill. It’s so light apparently, that you can pack it up and carry it in a backpack.

We’re short of details, aside from being able to tell you that their full website will launch in 37 days, and the sled itself will reportedly cost around $3,000 when it does become available. What? You didn’t think it’d be affordable, did you? It’s also reportedly being made by a team in New Zealand after 6 years of testing and prototyping.

And while the above picture does look like a render, the ones after the jump, not so much.

Ten points for creating a jacket that positively will not let any cold air touch your face. You’ll be able to roam the frozen tundra, safe in the knowledge that not an inch of your peachy skin will freeze. But that’s where the positive things about the “AI Riders on The Storm” jacket end. Or is that just the start? We’re a little torn. On the one hand, we kind of dig a piece of apparel that makes little old ladies cross the street to avoid us. It does look sort of badass. But we suspect that we’d also attract more than our fair share of stares from a public generally disapproving of anyone dressed as one would imagine a mass murderer would suit up. The question then is whether we should care? Well, at $454, the jacket pretty much prices itself right out of any sort of “hey, that could be cool to try out” sort of vibe we might have been feeling. Those with deeper pockets could of course disagree.

You know the “brace yourselves” meme? The one with the Game Of Thrones dude? Anyway, we feel like making one saying “Brace yourselves, winter posts are coming!” And we’re yet another blog to contribute to the onslaught, this time with news of some fancy heated gloves. The Chaval Response XRT are not your everyday corner-store heated gloves though, but some fancy $400 mittens with nanotechnology. Their most interesting feature? Self-regulating temperature:

[They contain a] proprietary, paper-thin, nanotech polymer film that automatically regulates its own temperature. As your hands get cold, the film gets denser, increasing its electrical conductivity. This change pulls power from a battery to deliver heat to the film and the hands. As your hands get warm, the heat reduces the film’s conductivity which reduces power draw.

This continuous temperature management also means that energy is conserved and the batteries end up lasting longer, maybe even all day. Charging them doesn’t require removing the batteries, but is instead accomplished by just plugging them in to the charger, pictured.

It’s not quite $400, but $390 on pre-order right now, with expected shipping on October 20th.

If it’s too darn noisy for you to be able to speak in a phone or a hands-free unit, one solution has traditionally been to use bone conduction to isolate your voice. This is what the Jawbone headset does. But sometimes, like when you go skiing, it’s not that comfortable to wear. So Buhel’s Speakgoggle G33 skiing visor has bone conduction technology that lets it pick up your voice from the sound of your friend’s careening-down-the-mountain screams. It pairs with your cellphone through Bluetooth and you can hear through earbuds. It also connects with other G33 visors directly and lets you have intercom functionality up to 500 meters (1,640 feet) apart, so that you can chat it up with up to 6 of your friends while trying not to get killed.

It’s as cold as a witch’s tit round these parts and extremities tend to suffer the most. Enter the heated gloves, which should make scraping ice off your windshield in the glacial weather just a little less painful. They’re powered by Lithium-Ion batteries and have 4 temperature settings. The lining is from 3M and there’s leather in the palm for grip and comfort. Water proof yet breathable, these gloves will cost a pretty penny: $159, thankfully reduced from $199.

Yet another item in our winter related series, the Heated Windshield Washer Fluid System promises to make windshield scraping a thing of the past. If you’re like us, when it’s really cold, you just sit in your frozen car with the wipers stupidly and noisily going back and forth over a thick layer of ice, which you’ve sprayed multiple times with your useless blue wiper fluid. Of course the fluid doesn’t do anything, it’s just as cold as the ice on the windshield but you’re too lazy to get out. So you wait. But if you had this system, in 30 seconds the fluid would be heated to 143º F and 150º F, quickly melting all that ice away and allowing you to remain lazy. It draws 2 Amps of power on average and turns itself off when the car is off. Also in the summer months, warm washer fluid will do a better job of removing insects and grime, so the $90 you’ll spend to get this will work year round.

Sledding is fun. We like the part where we slam into innocent bystanders loitering at the foot of the hill, only to run away hysterically when they threaten us with bodily harm. We enjoy the hard packed snow on our posteriors a little less, especially when all we have to get down that hill is a garbage bag. Don’t laugh, you’ve been there. But we’re thinking of investing in this here Bean Bag Sled. The bottom is double coated in PVC while the inside contains two things: a bunch of 2mm polystyrene spheres and an air bladder (hand pump required). Two straps make you feel like you could steer the thing, but the complete absence of any hard edges to carve into the snow pretty much ensures these are just decorative.

At $300, it’s definitely on the expensive side of sleds. But years of garbage bag sledding have allowed us to save up for this.

It’s no point repeating it on every single article, we all know winter’s pretty much already here. At least for those of us who don’t live in or near the tropics, this presents us with many issues. And none is more pressing than that of dealing with cold cars in winter. Most people get remote car starters and let things idle until toasty enough to drive away in. But that’s wasteful, people! Much better to plunk down this large electric heater with a programmable clock. Set what time you expect to be in your car and 20 minutes prior it will begin blasting hot air through its two tilting vents. Not sure what time you’re leaving? There’s a remote that works up to 200 feet away as well.

Sure the engine won’t be warm but that can be done in 2 or 3 minutes rather than the much longer time it takes to get the inside warm as well. You save gas, save the planet a little and everyone’s happy. The Car Interior Preheater can then be recharged through AC or with an included car charger.

The product picture looks like a 3D render. That always makes us worry that it might not be a real product. But assuming it is, the Crossbow Snow Launcher could make your wintery snow battles a little more efficient. While your friends are still throwing snowballs caveman style, you can pelt them from as far as 60ft away with relative ease. Actually, quite a bit of ease as this $40 launcher comes with a snowball press.

OhGizmo! is a frequently updated blog that focuses on covering items that will appeal to a very specific and often very passionate audience: the geek. Aside from the fare of innovative consumer electronic products, the reader can expect to find news about geek culture, absurd inventions, awe inspiring technology, and an ever growing assortment of articles that we like to think fit within our view of what we’re calling the Geek Lifestyle.